


Stand There And Watch Me Burn

by alexcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, M/M, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Top Steve Rogers, hints of voluntary torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 19:17:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18947191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: At the end of the day, they need one another to fill in the empty spaces.





	Stand There And Watch Me Burn

**Author's Note:**

> _Just gonna stand there and watch me burn_  
>  But that's alright, because I like the way it hurts  
> Just gonna stand there and hear me cry  
> But that's alright, because I love the way you lie  
> I love the way you lie   
> ~~ Eminem

Tony Stark was broken from the start. He tried to fill in all the holes with something, anything that kept him from seeing the truth. There were women, men, drugs, alcohol, and money. He had so much money that he could buy anything. His life wasn’t all waste, though. He was brilliant and creative and he had people in his life who loved him no matter what he did, Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper. 

He had gone through a lot and changed a lot over the years. He was a better man. He refused to build weapons. He used Iron Man for good, to protect people. He developed cleaner energy, useful innovations in many scientific and medical fields. 

But he was still broken. 

He did things that even Happy didn’t know he did. 

There was a woman who routinely bound and beat him until he reluctantly gave in and begged for mercy. She would clean his wounds and cluck over him like a mother hen, wishing he would find a way to let go of whatever made him need such a harsh punishment. She catered to men who enjoyed the pain and humiliation of what she gave them, but Stark did not. He suffered. He made her dole out more punishment than many men could take and he took like he deserved it. 

She wasn’t the only one. She often saw old bruises and cuts that he got from somewhere else. She suspected that those were fights with men meaner and harder than Stark was, and she was sure that someday he’d find an opponent that would carry out his death wish.

If he only knew what a good man she knew he was. She read the papers, she knew men who were knowledgeable about the tech and business world, men who told her how brilliant and stubbornly moral Tony Stark was.

 

Steve Rogers was his polar opposite. 

His mother had raised him to fight for right, to never back down or give in to bullies. His convictions were who he was. They were the reason he kept trying to join the Army even though he knew he wasn’t big or strong enough to fight. They were the reason he told Dr. Erskine yes, the reason he let Erskine and Howard Stark take his life from him and make him into something not quite human anymore. He took crazy risks because the principle was more important than he was. 

That they met at all was a bizarre twist of fate. 

But they did. 

*

On the ground on Stuttgart. Rogers didn’t even see his face. Stark just landed in a fanfare of loud music and confusion. Steve had loved Peggy but when he saw Stark’s face on the Quinjet, it wasn’t love. It was like someone had burned that face into his soul. He belonged to Stark from that moment on. He hadn’t liked it. He fought it. He fought it like his life depended on it. 

And Stark fought him, too, every step of the way. 

Sparks flew every time they were within ten feet of one another. 

They both felt it, knew it for what it was. 

They hadn’t known one another for more than a few hours when Stark had pushed him up against the wall in his cramped quarters on the helicarrier and kissed him the first time. 

“What are you doing?” Steve shoved him away.

“You want it as much as I do.” Stark pushed back and tried again. 

Steve’s pulse had quickened and his body had responded immediately to the kiss. 

“Get away from me, Stark.” 

“Make me.” He kissed Steve again. Instead of knocking Stark across the room as he intended, Steve kissed him back, the kiss more like the first volley of a battle than affection. Shame flooded him at the idea of kissing this man he hated on sight, but hot desire trumped the shame. 

He shoved Stark against the wall. “What have you done to me?” 

“You want to hurt me? Come on. Bring it,” Stark taunted him. 

Steve was still in his suit. Tony had on regular clothes. Tony reached down between them and felt of Steve through his suit. Steve jerked away from him. “Stop this!” 

Stark smirked. “You say that, but your dick says something else, Ice Pop. It feels like a steel rod.” 

“I don’t – I can’t do this with you.”

“Scared of a little dick?” Tony was in his face. 

Steve didn’t pull away when Stark found the zipper and opened the fly of his suit. He hissed when Stark’s hand plunged inside and grabbed him. Tony roughly jerked him, his hand moving in a rapid, uneven fashion that did nothing to slow down what Steve was feeling. 

“Come for me, you bastard,” Tony murmured just before his mouth took Steve’s in an aggressive kiss that had Stark fucking his mouth with his tongue, plunging it in over and over as Steve tried and failed to stop his body from the orgasm that Stark wanted. He groaned into Tony’s mouth as semen spurted all over the inside of his suit and on Tony’s hand. 

Steve slumped against the wall when it was done. He closed his eyes.

“Look at me, Rogers,” Tony demanded as he licked the remnants of Steve’s come from his fingers. 

Steve turned his head away. 

“Tastes just like any man’s, no special taste for heroes.” 

“Go away.” 

“We’re not done. You don’t get to quit just because you got your rocks off. Get on your knees and do me now.”

Steve’s eyes widened. He had never done such a thing before though many years ago, he’d certainly enjoyed it when grateful, patriotic young women wanted to give to the cause. Almost as if his body was acting on its own, he sank to his knees on the floor in front of Tony Stark. 

Tony jerked his pants down and thrust his hard cock at Steve. 

Steve closed his eyes and reached for Tony. Tony grabbed his head and pushed his cock into Steve’s mouth, into his throat. After a moment to get his bearings, Steve wrapped his tongue around it and let Tony fuck his mouth. 

Tony whispered, “Oh God, Steve…” It was a departure from the confrontational way he’d been speaking to Steve. Steve rested his hand on Tony’s flank, moving it closer and circling the base of his cock with his hand. The endearments went on until Tony spilled himself down Steve’s throat. Steve swallowed, not sure what else to do then looked up at Stark. 

He didn’t see the anger and revulsion from earlier. Tony closed his eyes and nodded to Steve. It was as close to a thanks as he could manage right now. Tony held a hand out and helped Steve to his feet. Each of them tucked themselves back into their own clothing and without further comment, returned to the bridge of the ship.

*

They fought side by side as comrades, brothers, though they never felt brotherly. 

Steve was actually surprised that he cared so much for Tony, worried so much about him during the battle in New York. Later, after the impromptu shawarma, after debriefing and showers, in the dead of the night, he’d kissed every single cut and bruise on Tony Stark’s body. 

“Steve,” Tony moaned as Steve followed a long deep scratch from his left side down to where his leg joined his body with his tongue. He wanted to make Tony be all right, take away his pain. 

“Shhh, it’s all right. I’ll take care of you.” Steve looked up into Stark’s eyes, thinking he’d never seen brown eyes quite like Stark’s. He knew all the bruises had to hurt. There was little of Stark’s body wasn’t darkened with bruising or crisscrossed with cuts and abrasions. 

That Stark was also rock hard didn’t escape him.

“I want you inside me, Cap,” Tony begged. 

“You’re too hurt. I – I might hurt you more.”

“I need pain to feel alive.”

Anger ran through Steve. He knew there were people who liked pain, liked letting someone else be in control. He also knew instinctively that Tony thought he deserved pain, not that he liked it. 

“No, I can’t hurt you. I can’t give that to you.” Steve moved up and kissed his lips, which were cut from where Tony had bitten them sometime in the suit that day. 

“You don’t know what I want.”

Steve didn’t argue with him. He slid down in the bed, kissing his way down, kissing around the glowing arc reactor. 

“At least get naked for me,” Tony croaked, his voice thick with arousal rather than pain this time. 

“I can do that.” He moved off the bed and dropped his sweatpants and t-shirt to the floor. 

Tony stared. Steve felt self-conscious, but too aroused himself to care for long. He _wanted_ to bury himself in Stark’s ass, wanted to tell him he loved him as he filled his perfect ass with his seed, but he couldn’t do either right now. To even try would make him lose Tony. He couldn’t afford that. 

Tony was the only lifeline he had, but he’d never tell Tony or anyone that. 

He moved back onto the bed and resumed his kissing just below the arc reactor. His fingers on one hand caressed the scarred skin around the reactor as his other hand slipped down and over Stark’s cock. Tony arched his hips up when Steve closed his hand and slid it slowly up the shaft. He wanted Tony in his mouth. He wanted him in so far that his nose touched the neatly trimmed dark hair around his cock. He wanted to smell the musky smell of Stark’s body. 

He licked at Tony, smiling when Tony cursed him with words that would have made Dumdum   
Dugan blush. 

In a consolation to what Tony asked for, Steve, seeing the lube that Tony had placed on the table by the bed, grabbed it and slicked his finger. As he took Tony into his mouth, he slipped his finger inside him. He fucked Tony as he sucked him, deep throating him as he added a second finger. 

The curses became even fouler than before. 

Every muscle in Tony’s body was clinched tight as he finally cried out unintelligibly and came in Steve’s throat, his muscles squeezing Steve’s fingers tightly. 

When he was done, Steve cleaned him gently and pulled Tony into his arms in the big bed. 

“Get some rest. You saved New York today,” he whispered to Tony as his breathing evened out and he relaxed in Steve’s embrace. 

*

Being in DC made their meetings a bit more difficult. Fury put Steve in an apartment where he could be watched all the time and Tony only came to DC when he couldn’t stand being away from Steve any longer. At the time Steve moved, Tony was seeing Pepper again, but that hadn’t stopped them from a ‘farewell bang’ as Tony so eloquently put it. 

One morning when Steve was heading out to his door to go to work at the Triskelion, Tony was standing beside his bike. 

“She kick you to the curb?” Steve asked. 

Tony shrugged. “I needed something else.”

“I still won’t punish you.”

Tony nodded. “I can’t get… you seem to...” He waved his hand in the air. 

“I know. We need to meet somewhere out of prying eyes. Fury has me watched.” Steve’s heart had sped up at the sight of Stark. 

They didn’t speak other than Avenger’s business and when they were somewhere together. There were no phone calls, no texts. They did not go out in public together either. Right now, though, he wanted to kiss Tony right here in the street. 

“If I don’t show up at SHIELD, Fury will come hunting me or send Maria Hill,” Steve told him as he finally stepped close enough to touch Tony’s shoulder in what looked like a friendly touch between friends, but they both knew it was more than that. 

“I can probably slip into your apartment.” 

“And it probably has cameras.” 

“I’ll text you an address. I’ve got the number.”

Steve nodded. “Later.”

The day went on forever, it seemed. Fury had him sit in on a couple of meetings. He worked hard at not thinking about things that would make standing difficult. Stark, of course, decided today would be a good day to send him messages. 

The first one came in at 10:30 and said, ‘Room at Beltway Best Western. 113.’

Steve didn’t answer. 

At 12:07, he got a second one. ‘Lunch?’

Steve jumped on his bike and was there in minutes. Tony opened the door before he knocked and yanked him inside by the arm. As soon as he was inside, Tony began unzipping him. He dropped his own pants and handed Steve the lube. 

“Now!” was all he said as Steve obeyed. Tony was ready for him, having already used the lube while he waited. Tony bent over the bed and Steve grabbed his hips and roughly penetrated him. Tony’s moan was one of pleasure as Steve fucked him hard.

“Missed this,” Tony said as he took himself in hand. 

Steve didn’t say anything, just slammed into Tony until they both came, seconds apart. Tony grabbed a towel and cleaned Steve then himself. Steve sat on the edge of the bed, not bothering with zipping or buttoning his pants yet. 

Steve’s phone sounded, his ring like an old fashioned telephone bell. 

“Rogers.” He listened for a few moments. “Left for lunch. I’ll be back by then.” 

He ended the call. “I gotta get back. I have to meet someone’s niece at 2.”

Tony shook his head. “They make you wear the suit?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I’m a novelty again, the Star spangled man with a plan.”

“I get it, too.”

“I probably need to, um, clean up a little. I smell like sex.” 

Tony kissed his cheek. Steve found it odd. Tony was not terribly affectionate any time so the kiss was rather touching. He went to the bathroom and cleaned himself a little more than just wiping with the towel. 

“I’ll be back… we might actually need some food by then. Order in? Go out?” he asked Tony. 

“I’ll take care of it. What time you get done there?” 

“I’ll be out by 6 unless the world ends before then.” On impulse, Steve pulled him close and kissed him again. Tony melted against him. “I don’t want to leave you,” Steve murmured and was gone. 

The afternoon dragged on forever for Steve. The little girl was sweet and shy, but she gave him a hug before her mother took her away. Steve loved kids and sometimes wished he’d had a life in which a wife and kids could have happened. He pushed the thought away and thought of brown eyes and strong hands covered in soldering burns and little abrasions from not being careful enough when handling sharp ended instruments. 

Those hands were waiting for him when he got back to the motel at 7. The motel might be cut-rate but the food was not. It was delivered as Steve got there, steak, lobster, tomato bisque, a wild rice dish, salads and good old New York style cheesecake for dessert. There was even a three figure bottle of wine delivered as well. 

Tony nibbled and watched Steve eat. 

“You might need your strength, Tony.” Steve fed him a piece of lobster with his finger. Tony ate the lobster and sucked the melted butter from Steve’s fingers. “If you do that many more times, you’ll have my dick in your mouth instead of my fingers.”

“I would not mind that at all,” Tony told him. 

“Eat, Tony. You're gonna need it.”

Tony grinned ruefully and ate a bite of his steak. 

“What brings you here?” Steve asked him. 

“I really did come just to see you. I – you – I crave what you give me. I can't explain it. I never liked you, and now, you're like fucking crack cocaine to me.”

Steve laughed. “I don't think anyone has ever said that to me.”

“Believe me, I've never said that to anyone before.”

After dinner, Tony poured them both a glass of pricey Tennessee whiskey. Steve couldn't really get drunk, but he didn't mind a nice glass of whiskey now and then. “Bucky and I used to drink this shit that tasted like liquid fire with a little gas mixed in. This is much smoother.” 

Tony grinned and they clinked their glasses in a toast. 

“So why me?” Steve asked him. 

“I wanted you to hurt me. I wanted to hate you. Neither worked out that way.”

“Why do you need pain?”

“I don't as much as I did. I've actually started therapy. She's cheaper than the dominatrix.”

Steve's jaw dropped. “The what?”

“Oh, I don't fuck her. She – she beats me. I wanted you to hurt me, too, but when you wouldn't, I took a look at my motivations. I decided to talk to someone. I still want the punishment sometimes.”

“So if pain isn't what you want from me, what is it that you want?”

Tony touched his arm. “I found that I like your company and that hero sized,” he paused and grinned rather wickedly at Steve, “heart of yours.”

Steve laughed and put his arm around Tony's shoulder. “Want to see my heart now?” he said close enough to Tony's ear that he felt Tony shiver. 

“Oh fuck yes!” 

They turned the lights off and Steve showed Tony that great heart and a lot more. 

 

2.

Time passed and the therapy continued to help Tony. He didn’t need pain as much as he had and he almost felt like he was worthy of Steve. They tried to keep their affair a secret and no one openly talked about it, but it was all too obvious to even the casual observer that the two men were oddly close. 

They worked together well. As Tony mentioned more than once, Cap provided the leadership and he paid for everything. They built a great team with the Avengers. 

A man of excesses, Tony took things too far when he and Bruce created Ultron and unwittingly set in motion things that would echo down through many years to come. 

Sokovia was a nightmare for them all, but more for Steve than anyone else. He felt responsible for many of the losses and he couldn’t stop himself from blaming Tony. Tony had created a monster because of his fear of alien incursion and that monster had been as much a threat as any aliens. 

Tony was just as angry, but more at himself. He was so angry with himself that he welcomed the oversight and the Sokovia Accords, if for no other reason than to keep himself and others like him in check. 

Steve’s refusal to sign and his refusal to allow the government to take Bucky put a wedge between him and Tony. Their relationship was severed by Zemo’s revelations and finally Steve and Bucky’s attack on Tony. 

*

Except that it wasn’t. 

It was nearly three months before Tony used the phone that Steve sent to him after Siberia. 

“I can’t do this without you,” was what he said when Steve answered. 

“Can’t do what?” Steve was in Germany with Natasha and Sam. They were getting prepared to raid an old HYDRA facility that was rumored to be active again. 

“Any fucking thing! I went back to my dominatrix friend and she said she couldn’t hurt me enough to satisfy me without killing me.”

“Go to therapy, Tony. I’ve hurt you all I ever want to. I didn’t enjoy it.”

Steve knew Tony well enough to know that Tony replayed the whole thing in his mind every day. He needed the pain it gave him. He was still as broken as he ever was. Tony had told Steve once that the time he had with Steve had been the only time he forgot his own failures, his own culpability in building better weapons for the world to kill itself with. They’d both fucked that up beyond repair, it seemed. 

“I need you. You’re the only one I don’t need pain from.”

“I don’t need you. You’re selfish and dangerous.” 

“I was not the one who refused to sign the Accords because of my precious freedom.” 

Typical Stark snarkiness, Steve thought. “No, you signed them because you felt guilty for what you’d done.” 

“I need you, Cap. You’re the only person who can make me feel better, like I might have value.”

“Don’t put that on me. You have value. You stopped making weapons. You and Bruce made Ultron out of a desire to do something good. My cock in your ass doesn’t give you value.” 

Steve was furious at Tony. How dare he do this after all the shit that happened between them! 

“I’ll come there,” Tony said, nearly begging.

Steve sighed. “I’ll meet you in Berlin in three days. There’s a Starbucks right in front of the Brandenburg Gate. In the afternoon at four. Get a coffee and sit outside.”

Steve wanted to kick his own ass at the way his heart sped up at the sight of Tony Stark in dark glasses. Steve was dressed in dark clothes and wore dark glasses himself. He approached the table. Tony looked thinner, older. 

“So you came. I wasn’t sure you would,” Tony said as Steve sat down. Tony handed him a cup of Americano, the coffee he always drank. He sipped. It was still hot. 

“I wasn’t either.” The truth was that he couldn’t stay away. He wanted Tony as much as he ever had. He’d wanted him even as he looked down into that bloody, terrified face in Siberia. He’d wanted him every single day since.

“Do you have somewhere we can, uh, go?” 

“Yeah, I have a little room. It’s tiny, but it’s all I need.” 

They left, coffees in hand, and got a taxi to the rooming house where Steve was staying. Steve was half hard just seeing Tony. Damn him! Steve lied to Tony and himself about how he felt. He couldn’t get Tony out of his mind. 

Steve unlocked the door and they went inside. Both of them set their cups down as soon as the door closed. They were in one another’s arms immediately. Steve kissed Tony like he needed the kiss to breathe. Damn him, it felt like he really did need it. 

“Missed you so much,” Tony murmured as his hands got busy with Steve’s zipper. Steve gasped aloud when Tony’s hand plunged inside his boxers and circled his erection. “You missed me, too,” Tony said as he kissed Steve again. 

Steve pushed him toward the bed, never letting him go at all. They fell onto the bed fully clothed. “Stop talking.” 

Tony moved his hand from Steve’s boxers and unbuckled his belt. Steve lifted his hips as he watched Tony slide his trousers and boxers down and off. Steve bit his lip Tony grabbed his t-shirt. He raised his upper body so it could be removed. 

“You look like a fucking god. D’you know that?” Tony told him as he looked at Steve’s naked body. 

“It’s all smoke and mirrors, Tony. You know that.” 

Tony began to kiss neck right under his ear and worked his way down to a smooth muscled chest. “Feels real to me,” he said before he returned to his kissing. 

“I’m a fucking lab rat, Tony.”

Tony ignored what he said and lapped at each nipple until Steve finally shivered and made a small sound in his throat. He licked a trail down to Steve’s navel and darted his tongue into it. 

“Geez, Tony!” Steve jerked and reached to stop him.

“One of those, huh?”

“Those?” 

“It’s one of those things you really like or can’t stand,” Tony explained. “I’ll, mmm, move on.” He did, licking his way down until Steve’s cock was in his way. He moved it with his hand and kissed and licked a trail to the base. As he kissed and licked Steve’s entire groin, he stroked him slowly with one hand. 

“Why are you here?” Steve asked him, breaking the spell they both seemed to be under. 

Tony stopped what he was doing and looked at Steve, really looked at him. Steve had a beard and his hair had gotten longer. Tony only then noticed the small lines on his face. 

“I tried to make it without you. I tried to hate you.” Tony moved up to lie beside Steve. He saw pain, the sadness in Steve’s face. “I can’t hate you. I’ve lied to everyone and blamed you for what really was my fault.”

“No, Tony, we are both wrong and both right.”

Steve put his hand on Tony’s cheek. Tony placed his hand over Steve’s. “We’re fucked up is what we are,” Tony whispered as he moved Steve’s hand so he could kiss that palm again. 

Steve began to remove Tony’s clothes, moving languidly as Tony helped. He leaned down to kiss the circular scar on Tony’s chest after Tony was naked. Tony arched his back and drew in a sharp breath as Steve kissed down his belly. Instead of taking him into his mouth, he teased him with his tongue until Tony was writhing. 

Without saying anything, Steve moved to the side of the bed and retrieved a bottle of lube, using it liberally on Tony and on himself. He lifted Tony’s legs and moved between, sinking slowly into Tony as he gazed into those brown eyes that always seemed to mesmerize him. As he leaned down over Tony, Tony wrapped his legs around Steve. 

“As much as I tried to hate you, I miss you. You keep my demons at bay somehow,” Tony told him as he gave himself finally to passion and stopped talking. 

“I know,” Steve said as he kissed Tony once before he got into a slow rhythm that sped up in small increments until he was rattling both Tony and the bed. Tony put his hand down between them to grasp his own cock, sliding his hand in conjunction with Steve’s deep thrusts. 

Being face to face, they watched one another as they came together, a hard, fast movement that changed to a slow rocking as they finished. Steve collapsed on top of Tony, laying his head on Tony’s chest. Tony smoothed his hair and put his arms around Steve. 

“Sometimes I hate you, Tony Stark,” Steve murmured as he relaxed for the first time in three months, “but I mostly just miss you, too. You make me calm and take away my fears.” Steve had never admitted to being vulnerable at all to Tony. 

They slept and Tony went home the next day. They knew they’d keep seeing one another and lying to the world and everyone else about how much they needed one another. Just knowing the other one was out there was enough for both of them to keep going.


End file.
